


Back In The USSR

by respoftw



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, mentions of past physical abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 22:25:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14223108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: Rodney goes back to Siberia.  John goes with him.





	Back In The USSR

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song by The Beatles.

By the time the flight touched down in Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport Rodney had sketched out the basic infrastructure needed for a planet wide travel network using Asgard beaming technology which was reason number two why declassification needed to happen soon, reason number one being the Nobel he was obviously due.  The fact that it had taken him less time to travel the length of two galaxies from Atlantis to the SGC than it would take to drive the ten miles from Tolmachevo Airport to the hotel in Novosibirsk proper was a joke. Of course, the bigger joke was that he was back in Siberia at all.

“Hey, it’s warm.  I thought Siberia was supposed to be cold.”

Maybe the biggest joke of all was that, this time, John Sheppard was with him.

Rodney glared at John, irritated at the way he still managed to look attractive after travelling for more than twenty four hours. Four flights and three layovers had left Rodney feeling (and, most likely, looking) like a bag of two day old crap but the only outward sign that John had been right there along with him was the fact that his hair was marginally less incomprehensible spiky than it usually was.

Rodney hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and started to walk a little faster along the blandly decorated airport corridor, pulling ahead enough that John had to do a quick half-jog-half-walk to catch up.

“It’s July, Colonel,” Rodney said stiffly. “The average temperature at this time of year is twenty degrees. I told you that before we came. Or before you _invited yourself_   _along_ I should say.”

John shrugged, jostling his own bag. “I thought you were talking in Fahrenheit.”

“And I suppose you also thought I’d start pronouncing it ZeePM as well, did you? Or maybe start doing that whole drawling thing you Americans do. Cowboy hats and howdy pardner and all that hokum.”

John chuckled under his breath, the noise more an exhale of breath than his usual donkey bray of a laugh. “I said that I thought you meant twenty degrees Fahrenheit, Rodney; not that I thought you were turning into John Wayne.”

“No,” Rodney snapped. “No, you didn’t. You knew exactly what temperature I meant, you’re not an idiot. You’re just trying to be all charming and - and - _cute_ and make me forget how much I hate this place.”

“Is it working?”

Rodney didn’t look back over his shoulder as he put on another burst of speed, leaving John lagging behind again. “You couldn’t be colder.”

“Come on, Rodney.” John caught up easily. “They’re giving you a medal. It can’t be all that bad.”

Rodney snorted through his nose.  If John believed that then maybe he really was an idiot.

* * *

 

The Novosibirsk laboratory complex wasn’t in Novosibirsk at all but situated thirty miles north, following the bend of the Ob River until you reached the middle of nowhere. It was just as cold as Rodney remembered it, never mind that the temperature outside was in the mid-twenties. The four hours of sleep and lukewarm shower he had managed to grab in the cheap budget hotel that the Russian government had sourced for them wasn’t anywhere near enough time for Rodney to feel human again and his eyes felt gritty with exhaustion as their driver, a tall, hulking blonde soldier with a face that could have been carved out of granite for all the life it had in it, pulled up outside the complex that Rodney had called hell for the year he had spent there.

“Hey, you ok?”  

John’s voice was soft with concern and his shoulder grazed against Rodney’s own in a way that would look accidental to anyone who noticed the small moment of contact. It was a dance that they’d gotten good at during their first few years together and a dance that they’d all but abandoned since DADT was repealed a year ago. John was smart enough to remember the steps though.

Russia was about as far from Atlantis as you could get in much more than distance.

“I’m fine,” Rodney answered, feeling anything but fine. Every corridor they walked down, every turn they took through the twisting complex, reminded him of how much he had hated it here. There, next to that stairwell, that was where two soldiers had rolled out their version of the welcome wagon for him; their version including a lot more fists and broken ribs than the Western version. The supply closet two corridors to his left was where he’d exchanged frequent, rushed hand jobs with Pietro Popov, a vaguely intelligent biochemist, before he had died in a lab accident on sub-level three, all the air being sucked out of the lab he’d been locked in after faulty sensors activated the security protocols while Rodney and his team were forced to watch from behind the reinforced glass door.

Every step Rodney took in this place made his stomach hurt more.

By the time they reached their destination, Rodney knew he was physically shaking from the effort to keep himself together. John’s warm hand at his back, not quite touching but close enough that Rodney could feel the faint stirring of the air around it, was the only thing keeping him from shaking apart.

The ceremony was long, filled with speeches in Russian that painted pretty pictures of Rodney’s time here. The applause that filled the room when General Tsalikov (the same General Tsalikov who had once stood in the corner of Rodney’s quarters smoking a cigarette while his soldiers threw Rodney a blanket party) pinned the medal on his suit jacket was vaguely predatory sounding to Rodney’s ears, sounding like the precursor to some perfidious ritual that would see him staked out on a table with a Wraith feeding hand bearing down on him.

The drinks after were made bearable only by the free-flowing vodka. John coughed at the burn of it but Rodney sucked it back like it was water. Evidently, it was like riding a bike.

On the ride back to their hotel, Rodney was too drunk for the dance and let himself lean against John in the back of the car. The same granite faced soldier was driving them and Rodney heard him mutter a word in Russian as they exited, one of the first words Rodney had learned during his time here. John didn’t know the word but he must have been able to infer from the tone it was said in that it was something bad and Rodney knew that it was only his hand wrapped around John’s wrist that kept him from lunging at the soldier.

Back in their room, Rodney started to push the two twin beds together, something he wouldn’t let John do when they had checked in last night. He stripped off his clothes and crawled into the sheets while John watched from the other side of the room.

“Get in here,” he snapped. “I thought you came on this trip with me to make me forget how much I hate this place.”

“Rodney, I- - you never spoke about it and I didn’t...why didn’t I know about this?

Rodney sighed. “No one does. It’s not something I talk about. Now, are you going to get in here and start making me feel better or not?”

John stripped efficiently out of his dress blues, letting them fall to the floor and not caring about the wrinkles. He settled in close, spooning against Rodney’s back, his arm lightly caressing the softness of Rodney’s belly.

“Is it working yet?”

Rodney smiled, feeling something approaching warm for the first time since they’d stepped on that first flight.

“Getting warmer.”

**Author's Note:**

> This isn’t the fic I sat down to write tonight but hey ho. I’ve always headcanoned Rodney’s time in Siberia as an incredibly hard and dark time for him and so my fluffy Siberian adventure kind of morphed into this. Ah, muse. Why are you so angsty!!?


End file.
